The Hurrian Language – Isolate, Northeast Caucasian, or Distant Indo-European Connections?

🌐 Embark on a captivating journey into the mysterious realm of the Hurrian language with Learn Hittite! Join us as we unravel the enigma of Hurrian origins, delve into the fascinating Mitanni state, and explore the textual treasures that unveil the secrets of Hurrian.

🕵️‍♂️ This introductory video promises an epic exploration. Here's what's in store:

Background: Uncover theories about Hurrian origins and the intriguing Mitanni state.

Linguistic Connections: Discover Hurrian's relationship with Urartian and the attempts to link it with other language families - including, surprisingly, the Indo-European family.

Phonology and Morphology: Dive into the intricacies of Hurrian language structure, exploring noun and verb formation. Witness Hurrian cuneiform in action as we examine texts and sentences from authentic materials.

By the end, you'll grasp the agglutinating and ergative nature of Hurrian.

🎓 Gain insights into the groundbreaking work of scholars like Ephraim Speiser, Ilse Wegner, and Roger D. Woodard. Plus, discover three recommended resources for further exploration into the ancient languages of the Near East.

🔗 Have questions or insights? Share them in the comments below!

📌 Note: Delve into the exploration of fragmentary languages with an understanding that some aspects are debated, and definitive answers may be elusive. 🌍🔠

Sources: (approximately, they are in the order they first appear in the video)

⭐Woodard, R. (Ed.). (2008). The Ancient Languages of Asia Minor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511486845

There are two German versions of Wegner’s Hurrian Grammar, the first has been translated into English.
⭐Wegner, I. (2000). Einführung in die hurritische Sprache. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Wegner, I. (2007). Einführung in die hurritsche Sprache (2nd rev. ed.). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz
Wegner, I. (1995). Suffixaufnahme in Hurrian: Normal Cases and Special Cases. In F. Plank (Ed.), Double Case: Agreement by Suffixaufnahme. New York, NY. Oxford Academic.

Fournet, A., & Bomhard, A. R. (2010). The Indo-European Elements in Hurrian. La Garenne Colombes / Charleston. (166 pages).

Laroche, E. (1980). Glossaire de la langue houritte. Editions Klincksieck. Paris.

Hrozny, B. (1915). Die Lösung des hethitischen Problems. Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft, 56, 17–50.

Michalowski, P. (1986). The Earliest Hurrian Toponymy: A New Sargonic Inscription. Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, 76, 4-11

Moran, W. (1992). The Amarna letters. Johns Hopkins University Press

Diakonoff, I. M., & Starostin, S. A. (1986). Huro-Urartian as an Eastern Caucasian Language. Münchener Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft, Beiheft, N.F., 12, München.

Kassian, A. (2010). [Review of the book The Indo-European Elements in Hurrian by A. Fournet and A. R. Bomhard (2010)]. The Journal of Language Relationship, issue 4, pp. 199-206.

Farber, W. (1971). Zu einigen Enklitika im Hurrischen (Pronomen, Kopula, syntaktische Partikeln). Orientalia, 40(1)

Wilhelm, G. (1991). A Hurrian Letter from Tell Brak. Iraq, 53, 159–168
Wilhelm, G. (1998). Die Inschrift des Tisatal von Urkes. in G. Buccellati and M. Kelly-Buccellati (eds.) : 117-143.

#hurrian
#neareast
#languageisolate
#protoindoeuropean
#historicallinguistics
#bronzeage
#mesopotamia
#anatolia
#urartian
#northeastcaucasianlanguages
#ancientlanguages
#learnhittite

[lecros]

I think most of your viewers would totally dig a video on the Khoi San languages, which if I remember correctly you mentioned to be your primary linguistic field of study. Of course there are the phonologies, but I would love an examination of some grammatical features. Shared in the Sprachbund or just an examination of one or two example languages

[peterszeug]

The language is literally nothing like (Proto-)Indoeuropean, except for the suffix -š/-ž in the Ergative Singular in Hurrian which sightly reminds one of the suffix -ş in the Nominative Singular in Gothic or Latin.
My hypothesis would be, that PIE and Proto-Urartu-Hurrian either borrowed this presumed Agens marker from some unknown tongue without surviving records, or PIE borrowed the suffix from Proto-Urartu-Hurrian. The singular -s always appeared odd to me, confusing the precise articulation of case & number,
but in Hurrian,
the -š/-ž does not seem out of place at all, it is very much distinct as would be expected of an Ergative marker for it to function effectively, which of course doesn't necessarily proves or disproves a native, Hurrian origin of the suffix.
I doubt that PIE is the original source of the suffix, but to be fair, there were speakers of a very early variant of Indo-Aryan language in Mitanni, living in the exact same area as the Hurrians, though to my knowledge, this Indoeuropean tongue would had already have lost the Ergative-Absolutive alignment of PIE and would have had the classic Nominative-Accusative alignment, which begs the question, for what reason could the Hurrians have adopted only this one feature of the Mitanni-Aryan language, and change the application of it towards a linguistic feature [Ergative suffix], which Hurrian beforehand should have had in the first place??
A common genetic origin of Hurrian and PIE seems totally implausible, as Hurrian is neither similar to PIE, nor one of the, much more likely, distant relatives of PIE. Uralic, Basque, Kartvelian or Afro-Asiatic have, at the utmost, highly superficial parallels to Hurrian, if any at all.

[fatosshubert]

Etymology is very new linguistic science, l don’t think it will be any good for comparison.

[horoefrin]

Till to day as Kurdish peoples we use Horo name in Kurdistan north Syria and in Afrin north Syria we still have ancient town and citadel in the name of King Hori, Hor Khor(means Sun☀️, solar Disc) in our native oldest langauges and also in Kurdistan west Iran and North Iraq means Sun . also Hori Khori passed into Christian religion

[Nastya_]

Also, it seems that Bomhard does no longer consider Hurro-Urartian to be related to Indo-European, instead arguing the similarities are due to early contact.

Wegner, I., Bomhard, A. R. (2020). An Introduction to the Hurrian Language. p. 15.
"In 2010, Arnaud Fournet and Allan R. Bomhard prepared a study in which they tried to demonstrate that there were non-Indo-Aryan Indo-European (grammatical and lexical) elements in Hurrian. Bomhard now (2020) takes these to be the result of prehistoric language contact."

[jacobersno]

Hurrian language was pretty similar to Nohchiy(Chechen) language.

[Yekemcar]

One of modt interesting point is the Hurrian word (" Hil " ) means (to say, to speak).

In Kurdish we have word ( Hewal-deh ) a compound verb, by:
▪Hewal-: to say, to speak, to tell
▪-deh: is the root of verb to Do, to done, to make

So we say it quotidia in Kurdish:
- ji me ra hewal-da
(for us tell-did ... told us)

- Ka ez ji we ra çîroka Memê Alan hewal-dim
(Give me for you count-of Mem-the Alan I do telling ... Let me tell you the count of Mamê Alan).

And I see the word ( Hewal-deh, hewl-deh ), as
a very obvious an agglutination between Hurrian's root (hewal, hewl) with Indo-European root suffix (-deh).

And it's make to remember the historic fact about Hurro-Mittanian Kingdom, where two languages emerged in mixing. To create base foundation to new language later.

[fenerbahceliyk]

Hurrian still the same its kurmandsh dialect of kurdish still spokek by same people still there

[rocktapperrobin]

What I really like about your videos is that you references for where we can find good information.

As to affiliated languages, in my opinion we should accept that most of language history is lost. On evolutionary grounds I would argue that fully developed language has been around as long as our species has existed. It follows that language families have come and gone and very ancient relationships, given that there has to be continuity of speech, cannot be established. There is simply no evidence. Proto Urartian-Hurrian has to come from somewhere but it could derive from a family of languages that don’t now exist. Or it may be related to an extant language. Sometimes we can’t connect the dots

[mohammedalwakeel]

Genetically Uraratians are definitely armenians but Hurrians are in between Armenians and Kurmanji kurds

[LuisAldamiz]

Very interesting, I would probably also subscribe to a channel called "Learn Hurrian". That area of Mittani, later Media, is the true heartland of West Asia (as the name suggests, both seem to mean "the middle country") and thus potentially holds many linguistic clues to the labyrinth of Neolithic and post-Neolithic Fertile Crescent (and its ancient scatter to Europe, India, etc.)

My suspicion, based on very limited number comparisons, is that Hurrrian is not just linked to East Caucasian but that both may well be distantly related to Sumerian as well (which arguably also originated somewhere in that area and then migrated southwards through Mesopotamia).

Some other observations:

1. Hur > > Kurd is plausible (although of course Kurdish is Iranic, surely Median-derived, and not anymore Hurrian, it may well retain much Hurrian substrate vocabulary).

2. When the books locate Urartean in "Armenia" they don't mean the modern residual country but rather Historical Armenia, including all NE Turkey. This is more explicit when they say (and you repeat without paying attention) "lake Van". It's well known and generally accepted that Armenian is the result of Phrygians conquering Urartu in the Iron Age.

3. The professional suffix "-ari" (which you treat as two elements but I'll treat as just one) is extremely intriguing. Until now I was aware of it being Latin ("-arius"), which produces Romance and Germanic -er(o/a) endings and the extremely similar Basque -ari, with identical role (but usually different construct words, such as nekazari, literally "effort-er" or "work-er" more loosely but used for farmers in fact). This suffix lacks satisfactory Indoeuropean etymology, while to me the Basque/Vasconic etymology is obvious (ari = continuous tenses' necessary particle, arin = fast, aritu = to hurry up). Thus I had concluded that the Latin element was necessarily a Vasconic substrate loanword, however now that a Hurrian identical element shows up, I can't say for sure anymore.

[jahanas]

This is a good presentation. I’ve been studying Hurrian for several years. I haven’t read Woodard but have the others. I’m always interested in gaining new knowledge.

[AutoReport]

By the Mitanni period Indo-Iranian mercenaries had assumed power in the Hurrian kingdom, so there is a later Indo European overlay.

[sahhaf]

I vote for an urartian video. the next natural stop after the hurrian..

[Nastya_]

Kassian has suggested a connection between Hurro-Urartian, Hattic, Burushaski and Yeniseian

Source:
Kassian, A. (2009–2010). Hattic as a Sino-Caucasian language

[christopherellis]

I cannot imagine an ergative language requiring the accusative.
The " and" reminds ne of the noun phrase marker in Basque (-a)

[josepheridu]

Black Speech, the language invented by Tolkien for Orcs, seems to be superficially based on this language.

[vascoespañol]

Hurrian sounds like Basque from Euskal herria

[KurdishKing-ve]

These are ancestors of the Kurdish people

[horoefrin]

En, Eni till today as Kurdish we use this word which it is Friday's name in our week days name, and as a verb En, Enan means belive, thought